I stare dumbly as he crouches on the floor, his hand scraping at the thin gap between the bottom of the refrigerator and the tiles.
“Someone grab me a fork or something,” he says, still hunched over.
“A fork?” Leo asks. “Are you planning a meal down there?”
“No, but I think if I could just—”
“It’s fine,” I say, placing a hand lightly on his back. “Really. It wasn’t anything important.”
Teddy looks worried as he springs to his feet. “You sure?”
“Yes,” I say, trying not to sound as relieved as I feel.
He wipes his hands on his jeans, then stoops to grab the ticket, which came to rest on the floor near my shoe. “Better the card than the ticket, right?”
“Right,” Leo says, laughing at this. “I’m sure that refrigerator was the only thing standing between you and thejackpot.”
Teddy tends to be the center of attention even when it isn’t his birthday. So tonight it’s almost impossible to get any time with him. He’s surrounded by other friends, and there always seem to be more lingering off to the side, waiting to say hello or give him a hug.
I watch from across the room as he bends his head low to say something to Lila, his ex-girlfriend. They only broke up a few weeks ago, after dating for nearly three months, which is right around when it usually happens. There’s a method to Teddy’s madness when it comes to girls: after winning them over, they date for a little while, then when he’s ready to move on he starts acting so distant, so frustratingly unavailable, so entirely checked out, thattheyeventually break up withhim.
“You’re awful,” I said over Christmas break when he told me Lila had finally given up on him.
“Or am I kind of a genius?” he said with that trademark grin of his.
I’m not anything like the parade of overly perky girls who usually go after him. I’m supposed to fall in love with someone like Nate from my advanced calculus class, who is going to MIT next year, or David, who volunteers with me at the nursing home, or Jackson, who writes poetry so beautiful my heart speeds up when he reads it aloud during our English class.
The truth is, Teddy McAvoy isn’t my type at all. He’s a little too smooth, a little too confident, a little too pleased with himself. He is—basically—a little too Teddy.
Even so, I watch miserably as Lila rises onto her tiptoes to whisper something in his ear and he throws his head back in laughter.
“You know,” Leo says, following my gaze, “the traditional way to pass the time at events like this would be to talk to someone.” I open my mouth to respond, but he holds up a hand before I can. “Other than me.”
“I know,” I say, pulling my eyes away from Teddy. “Sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I promise I’ll be more fun.”
“Let’s try for something more realistic,” he teases, giving me a pat on the shoulder, “like mildly talkative or even just mostly present.”
“What’s that?” Teddy asks, coming up behind us. “Morepresents?”
I roll my eyes.
“I’m going out to see the snow,” he says. “You guys wanna come?”
“Too cold,” Leo says, and I’m silently grateful for this as I turn to Teddy with what I hope comes off as a casual shrug.
He holds out his arm to me. “Shall we?”
As soon as we step outside the apartment, the party feels distant, the music muffled and far away. At the end of the dimly lit hallway, Teddy pushes open the heavy door to the fire escape and we’re met with an icy blast of air. Outside, the snow is still coming down hard, the wind tossing it around like bits of confetti. I tuck my hands into the sleeves of my sweater and walk over to the railing.
There isn’t much of a view from up here, just the windows of the buildings all around us, which are mostly dark at this point. Below there’s a single set of footprints in the snow, and even those are quickly fading. It’s nearly midnight, and the world is quiet.
Teddy bends down and scoops up a handful of snow with his bare hands, leisurely packing it into a perfect ball. Then he winds up, adopting a pitcher’s stance, and looks out toward the street as if to launch it over the side of the fire escape. But at the last minute he spins around and tosses it at me.
“Hey,” I say, giving him a look of mock outrage as I brush the snow from my sweater, but he just smiles.
“Had to be done,” he says, stepping up to the rail beside me. He leans in and bumps my shoulder gently with his. “It’s tradition.”
I can’t help smiling at this. My face is already stinging with cold, and my hands are frozen, so I shove them into the pockets of my jeans, trying not to show it. Because the last thing I want right now is to go back inside, to step out of the snow and the dark and the stillness. Below us the door to the building opens, then closes, and a few people spill out, their voices hushed. In the cone of light from the streetlamp the snow falls steadily, and Teddy turns to face me, his smile slipping.
